Find Specific Text in a Page or Document with Ctrl+F

Ctrl+F opens Find in many browsers and document apps. Use it to look for a word or phrase in the page or document you already have open, without scrolling through everything.

It is handy for finding a download section, a setting in a long guide, or the comments below an article. On a Mac, the usual shortcut is Command+F.

Find the comments section: an example

1. Open the page you want to search. Hold Ctrl, tap F, then release both keys.
2. A Find box appears. Its position depends on the browser or app.
3. Type comment. Matching text is highlighted.
4. Use the arrows beside the Find box to move through the matches until you reach the comments section. In many desktop browsers, Enter goes to the next match and Shift+Enter goes back.
5. Close the Find box when you are finished. Desktop browsers usually let you press Esc. You can also simply click on an empty part of the page to unfocus and deselect the Find Box.

Tips when you cannot find something

• Try a shorter search. comm can find comment or comments. Check for spelling mistakes and extra spaces.
• Some apps have search options such as Match case or Whole words. Check whether these are excluding the result you want.
• Comments, collapsed sections, or more results may need to be opened before their text can be found.
• Text in a screenshot or scanned PDF needs text recognition, often called OCR, before ordinary Find can search it. A PDF that already has a recognised text layer can be searched.
• On a phone, look in the browser menu for Find in page or Find on page.

Ctrl+F searches the current page or document. To find an article elsewhere on a website, use that website’s search instead.

For the browser instructions, see Google’s Find in page guide. Adobe also explains how text recognition makes scanned PDFs searchable.